The Star Wars News Roundup – 3.28.14

The purpose of this roundup is to put the highlights of all things Star Wars from the last week in one location. If you read this each week, you should be able to converse fluently with any Star Wars fan on everything from the latest Star Wars: Episode VII developments to the latest toys. And maybe you’ll even share with them something that they might have missed.

Let’s get to it!

Episode VII and Spinoff News and Rumors

This morning, the Comicpalooza convention in Houston, TX posted the following: “We regret to announce that Peter Mayhew is canceling his appearance at Comicpalooza this year due to filming.”

We regret to announce that Peter Mayhew is canceling his appearance at Comicpalooza this year due to filming.

So why not announce anything? There could be several possible reasons. One, of course, is that there is still so much undecided behind the scenes that they aren’t prepared to answer anything. Another possibility is that it’s just J.J. Abrams’ trademark secrecy. And another possibility is that it’s Star Wars – they don’t need to announce anything about it and every media outlet in the world will still talk about it. You’re reading this, aren’t you?

There were a couple of tweets online about the cameras being used to film “Episode VII”:

Carrie Fisher was interviewed recently on the red carpet and artfully dodged an “Episode VII” question from Mingle Media. I guess she got the Disney memo!

Dominic Monaghan talks about Abrams’ “Episode VII” and casting:

MakingStarWars.Net – Sam Witwer was going to audition for “Episode VII” until the role changed.

Sam Witwer was set to audition for Star Wars: Episode VII. Then what happened? Well, the role changed and the awesome Witwer did not have a shot at a role in the film any longer.

“I was about to, but the parameters of that role changed. I did not go in, so I can tell you I did not go in.”

That was about six or seven months ago when things changed. It appears to have been because of the Arndt draft being altered when Lawrence Kasdan and J.J. Abrams took over the final version of the script.

Fortune – Electronic Arts’ Andrew Wilson reflects on his first months as CEO

Back in November 2013, EA signed a 10-year licensing deal with Disney (DIS) to create multiple games across platforms set within the Star Wars universe. While only the Star Wars Battlefront game for Xbox One and PS4 from EA developer DICE has been confirmed to date, there are also online reports that an original Star Wars open world action game is in development at EA Canada. One thing that EA has made clear is that it’s not making games based directly on the upcoming films from Disney.

“What Warner Bros. did with Batman was take the core roots of that IP and manifest that inside the walls of Gotham City and delivered an interactive experience that had real ties to what you would see in the films and what you had read in the comics, while having its own life because it could provide such deep and more immersive storylines,” said Wilson. “When we look at the Star Wars properties that’s how we’re looking at it. We’re not trying to build a game that replicates the storyline of any particular film.”